SWO, East Duplin to meet for softball tny title

RICHLANDS — While she knew a hit would give East Duplin the lead in a topsy-turvy game against Swansboro, junior Jennifer Pate wasn’t looking for a particular pitch with two outs in the home half of the sixth inning Tuesday night.

RICHLANDS — While she knew a hit would give East Duplin the lead in a topsy-turvy game against Swansboro, junior Jennifer Pate wasn’t looking for a particular pitch with two outs in the home half of the sixth inning Tuesday night.

“I’m just going for everything that comes at me. I just told myself I was going down swinging,” Pate said, “and that’s what I did and I made contact.”

Indeed, Pate laced a single into the left-center field gap to drive home Anna Craft for what proved the winning run and capped a comeback from a five-run deficit as the Panthers beat the Pirates 9-8 to advance to the finals of the Piggly Wiggly Softball Tournament.

“It’s pretty sweet,” said Pate, who was 0-for-1 with a strikeout and two walks before her game-winner. “It was kind of crazy. To tell you the truth, I was kind of praying the whole time. But I had a feeling we were going to come back, and we did.”

The Panthers (9-3) will take on Southwest (10-1) for the title at 7 p.m. tonight at Richlands High School while Swansboro (4-5) will face Northside (3-9) for third place at 4 p.m. The day opens with Croatan (1-8) facing Dixon (4-8) at 10 a.m. for seventh place, followed by Jacksonville (2-12) against Richlands (9-3) for fifth place.

Swansboro jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first inning against the Panthers thanks to a two-run double by Alex Watkins, a sacrifice fly by Andrea Heredia and two errors. But the Panthers cut the lead to 5-3 in the third behind a two-run single by Makayla Byrd and then took the lead at 8-7 with five runs in the fifth, which included a two-run single by Kendall Lego followed by a two-RBI double by Chelsey Cooper.

But the Pirates tied it in the sixth when Hayley Barlow walked and came around to score on back-to-back groundouts before an infield single by Morgan Sheehan. But that was short-lived as the Panthers answered in the bottom of the inning.

East Duplin coach Greg Jenkins said he gave Pate two options.

“She’d been struggling, and she’s probably either No. 1 or No. 2 on our bunt list, a lot of speed,” he said. “If there was only out, it definitely been a squeeze situation. I kind of gave her the choice I said look with two outs, you lay it down and if it’s not perfect, they’re going to throw you out at first and we’re not going to get that run in.

And she made the most of it, driving in Craft, who was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and went to third on an error. Swansboro went down in order in the top of the seventh on three ground balls.

Page 2 of 4 - “I thought we were very lucky tonight,” Jenkins said, adding the Panthers “weren’t very mentally focused” and found themselves down 5-0 before they even had a chance to bat. “But the girls responded well. Resilience is the word we used afterwards.”

Southwest 2, Northside 1

With two of the area’s top pitchers on the mound, Southwest’s semifinal battle with Northside figured a pitchers’ duel.

“I knew it was going to be a battle of the pitchers,” Southwest first-year coach Tiffany Murphy said. “I knew it was going to come down to whoever’s defense (played better), and luckily it was ours. But we really got tested right at there at the end.”

The Stallions grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first when Botzenhart’s outfield fly was misplayed, allowing her to come all the way around to score. Southwest made it 2-0 thanks to three errors in the sixth along with an infield single by Alexis France.

Northside cut the lead in half in the seventh when Halford singled, stole second and scored on Jayme Strokes’ one-out double to left field. Stokes then stole third, but with two outs second baseman Jessie Sbrocco made a nice snare of a hot grounder by Alex Kirk and threw to first for the final out.

“It was kind of nerve racking, being out there with the tying run on the third and knowing that I had to make the play or we were going to have to go into extra innings,” Sbrocco said. “I reacted to it pretty quickly and got the out.”

Richlands (9-3) rallied for two runs in the bottom of the seventh on a game-tying single by No. 9 hitter Katie Ripolio, who scored the winning run on Soraya Kornegay’s single as the Wildcats edged the Bulldogs (4-8).

Kelly Huffman walked on a 3-2 pitch to open the inning and stole second before Ripolio’s single to left. After Taylor Martin reached on an infield single, Kornegay laced a single to right field for the victory.

“It just came around for me,” said Kornegay, who had been 0-3 with two strikeouts and a ground out before the game-winner. “I wasn’t looking too good. But I came back and I had to get with it and hit the ball.

Page 3 of 4 - “Thank goodness it was an outside pitch. I work with the outside pitch a lot, and it came through.”

Kornegay, who said she thought initially the ball was going to be caught by the first baseman, said the win was big for the Wildcats.

“This was a good win,” she said. “A win tomorrow and we’re two for three and it’d be a good turnout for the tournament.”

Jacksonville 14, Croatan 13 (8 innings)

In a game pitting two teams that won only one game each this season, Jacksonville (2-12) outlasted Croatan, scoring the winning run in the top of the eighth when Kate Reeves led off with a double and came around to score on two wild pitches.

Croatan (1-8) didn’t threaten in the bottom of the inning in a game that had a little (and a lot) of everything, including 13 errors, 10 wild pitches and 2 passed balls along with 3 doubles, 1 triple and a two-run homer by Croatan’s Karly Stevens, who was 4-for-5 with 4 RBIs.

“We started real slow,” JHS coach James Browning said. “We did a good job of battling through some adversity, some troubling plays. We made some errors. We did a good job of coming back from there.

“We’ve got a lot of young athletes that are learning to play softball. They’re getting better, but they still make some mental mistakes. You probably saw it a little bit on the bases. We didn’t advance when we could have and should have. We didn’t throw the ball quite the right place sometimes.